As Bosnia Talks Stand Still, So Does Aid

ByCompiledEric C. EvartsSeptember 7, 1993

RELIEF workers maneuvered some aid convoys around battle zones in Bosnia-Herzegovina over the weekend, but Sarajevo remained critically short of fuel.

Refugees fled renewed fighting in central Bosnia between Croat and Muslim-led government forces.

Lt. Col. Bill Aikman, United Nations spokesman in Sarajevo, says 20 convoys delivered more than 1,000 tons of food and supplies to parts of central and eastern Bosnia Sunday, but that their success was an exception.

Sarajevo's fuel reserves were critically low, threatening operations at the city bakery, the main hospital, and other facilities, says Ray Wilkinson, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. A convoy carrying diesel fuel for Sarajevo, the besieged Bosnian capital, remained stalled in western Bosnia because of Croat-Muslim battles.

Fighting has persisted despite word that peace talks on dividing Bosnia into three states - Serb, Croat, and predominantly Muslim - might get back on track. The talks collapsed last week because of disputes over the proposed borders. But Bosnia's Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic, said Saturday that he expected them to resume in two weeks.

Pope John Paul II issued an appeal yesterday for environmental renewal during his first trip to Lithuania, a nation whose land, air, and water were spoiled by decades of communist rule. ``The earth is man's homeland,'' the pope said during a morning Mass in Kaunas, Lithuania's second largest city. Lithuania is the former Soviet Union's Roman Catholic stronghold.

The pope's message carried special meaning in Lithuania, which has complained about environmental damage done during 50 years of Soviet rule.

Leaders here have repeatedly clashed with Russia over their demands for billions of dollars in compensation for the mess left behind by former Soviet troops. Lithuania alone had 180 Soviet bases.

These installations are said to have contaminated ground water, defaced the landscape, and rendered land useless.